What can cause duplicates machines for a VMware connector?

In simple terms, having duplicate universal unique identifier's (UUID's) for virtual machines will result in duplicates showing in Certero.

VMware state that to ensure all virtual machines are identified properly, each virtual machine is automatically assigned a universal unique identifier (UUID).

Within Certero we use a combination of the virtual machine UUID and it's name to try and identify a distinct virtual machine. If either of these two virtual machine attributes were changed, this risks creating a duplicate within Certero. The same VMware UUID is also used by Certero to match the inventory of a virtual machine.

To remove the risk of duplicate virtual machines within Certero, you will need to make the UUID of each virtual machines unique across all your vCenter systems.

For some advice and guidance on how on this subject area, please refer to the following VMware articles that may help you address any duplicates within Certero:

• Duplicate VMDK UUIDs are created when virtual machines are deployed from a template

• VM BIOS UUIDs are not unique when virtual machines are deployed from vApp templates

• Editing a virtual machine with a duplicate UUID.bios

You should also be aware that cloning a virtual machine may also clone the unique identifier that is used by Certero; as a result instead of creating 2 duplicate entries in Certero only a single inventory record will be created and both systems will keep updating the same one. To resolve this issue on a windows system please refer to the following article:

How do I include the Certero client agent as part of our standard build

For Linux based systems locate the following file which is likely to be located in either the home or tmp folders and delete it.

.assetstudio.guid

When the next inventory is completed a new UID will be created and therefore Certero will treat these as new systems.